3/17/2009 @ 9:00PM

Getting Back To Business As Usual

The biggest challenge in rebranding today is rebuilding consumer confidence.

A couple of interesting things happened on my US Airways flight to Richmond, Va., a week or so ago. First, when the flight attendants began their customary demonstration of the safety equipment, everyone on board paid attention, including passengers who seemed to be of the frequent flier variety. Seems the recent safe and heroic landing on the Hudson River by another US Airlines plane had people paying heed to activities they had heretofore dismissed with indifference.

This alone, would have made for a good story line. But in this day of shrinking consumer confidence and growing mistrust of institutions, it was the second interesting thing about the flight that got me thinking. The trip went as smoothly and uneventfully as an airline trip could go–and should go. It left me with a strange sense of wonderment. The sensation of having experienced business as should be usual.

These are not usual times. Things have been unusual for months. So when people start thinking about brand encounters that were once considered business as usual as momentous occasions, you know marketers have passed the tipping point. And while it is mostly a select group of financial, automotive and insurance firms that have hit consumers hardest with lies, liens and laissez-faire attitudes, the collateral damage in the form of worry and cynicism is affecting all brands in all categories in some way or another.

While in the past, a company could go “dark” with its branding initiatives for a few weeks after a nasty bit of public relations, in today’s environment this just isn’t an option, especially for companies at the epicenter of our country’s economic meltdown. As news of the recession and its aftershocks is reinforced minute by minute by ratings-obsessed media, consumers are demanding not only decent value from brands but corporate values based on decency. People want business as usual, the way “usual” used to be.

This is important stuff that requires heavy lifting. Forget going dark. Forget logo tweaks, signage switches or cosmetic branding changes of any sort. Forget philanthropic spins or short-term promotional spins. Forget everything but this: deeds, not words. The only way to rebuild consumer confidence in times like these is to make a simple brand promise and keep it. Determine what you want your brand to stand for in the minds of consumers, and support it day in and day out through actions and behaviors.

I’m not talking about big ideas here, but basic ideals. Whether its comeback is made by way of bailout or bankruptcy, the only way
General Motors
is going to get consumers to feel comfortable about seeing the USA in their Chevrolets again is if it demonstrates that it’s more than the quality of the cars that make ownership a pleasure. It is the high quality of its dealer experience, its service experience and its financing experience.

AIG
, the immense insurance company that took billions of dollars in bailout money from the U.S. government, could take a branding page or two from Farmers Insurance Group. Founded in 1928, a year before the last crash, it was started to assist the nation’s farmers and has become the third-largest insurer in the country. Not because of any high-wire acts or financial shell games, mind you, but as the result of making good on the simple promise of paying claims in cash and not through IOUs.

Hewlett-Packard
, a company that has had its share of ups and downs, is now the world’s biggest technology company.
Mark
Hurd
Mark Hurd
, who according to one magazine is “the you’d want to be your CEO in a recession,” has been putting his company’s money where its mouth is by making good on the brand’s promise to help customers find ways to do more for less. His benchmarks for efficiency and exemplary customer care have kept HP on the uptick for four years and counting.

These are not extraordinary initiatives or whiz-bang branding tactics. They are examples of what it takes to gain consumer confidence in a world rightfully lacking in confidence in brands. What we once considered business as usual was, for all intents and purposes, what it meant to make a brand promise and actively deliver it. I experienced it on my US Airlines flight, and at first I couldn’t figure out what I was feeling.

For any company looking to successfully rebrand as a way to rebuild consumer confidence, take my advice: Make business as usual as unsurprising as it should be.

Allen Adamson is managing director of the New York office of Landor Associates, a brand consultancy and design firm. He is also the author of BrandDigital and BrandSimple.